iPhone 16e features and value review

The newest iPhone is here. It’s the most affordable, with a unique design and outstanding battery life. So, should you buy it?

Apple’s latest iPhone is the iPhone 16e, the most affordable iPhone you can buy, and the newest member of the iPhone 16 series. It has an original design, a new camera and the longest battery life of any iPhone with this size screen.

You could be fooled into thinking this is a replacement for the third-generation iPhone SE, which was previously the cheapest way to buy an Apple phone (and which was £170 cheaper than this one). But it’s really not. This is an all-new mid-range phone which has features that no iPhone SE came close to.

Where there’s a similarity is that the new phone takes an existing iPhone design, but it changes it in new ways. The last iPhone SE, which was available until last week, had a 4.7-inch LCD screen, a 12-megapixel camera, a mute/ring switch, a Touch ID fingerprint sensor which took up space on the front and no wireless charging.

The new iPhone is completely different. Its screen is now OLED, measures 6.1 inches and has Face ID and a super-tough cover glass, a 48-megapixel camera, a configurable Action Button, the latest Apple processor and wireless charging. If those attributes sound familiar, it’s because they’re also found on Apple’s most recent release, the iPhone 16 – which costs £200 more.

So, who is this phone for, what has Apple left out and is the new £599 price good value?

The iPhone 16e has an accomplished design, with the same OLED display covering the entire front of the phone as the iPhone 16, thanks to the facial recognition system used on Apple’s flagship phones. It has the same Ceramic Shield as other top-flight iPhones which is designed to be tough enough to withstand falls better.

Where the display differs from the iPhone 16 is that the more advanced Dynamic Island is not here. That’s a feature that serves up useful information in changing panels, thanks to smaller cut-outs housing the cameras and sensors. Instead, there’s a larger cut-out that sits at the top of the display where the Face ID magic happens.

There’s no Camera Control on the iPhone 16e – the clever new camera interface button on the rest of the 16 series, though there are lots of other ways to launch the camera, of course.

The other big design change compared to the iPhone 16 is the camera. Here, there’s just one camera, whereas the 16 has two.

There’s no MagSafe here, but if you are the sort of person who puts their phone in a case, there are plenty of MagSafe-compatible cases which provide that satisfying snap-into-place (though it won’t charge as fast wirelessly).

Other features, such as StandBy, which turns your iPhone display into a useful information screen when it’s charging and placed in landscape orientation, are here, though the 16e does not have the always-on display of the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, for instance.

Since the retirement of the iPhone SE, this 6.1-inch display is the smallest size iPhones now come in (which may not please those who want the tiniest of phones). The all-screen front keeps the size of the phone down, of course.

The OLED screen is a 60Hz model, that is, it doesn’t have the dynamic refresh rate of iPhone’s Pro models, but that’s not surprising on a mid-range phone, and this display exactly matches the pricier iPhone 16. It looks great, with faithful colours, great contrast and pin-sharp resolution.

The new AI features are called Apple Intelligence. These include tools to rewrite emails or texts and something called Image Playground where you can create pictures from simple text inputs, for example, or even generate original emoji to use in text messages.

These features need processing power and are made possible thanks to the latest iPhone processor, the A18.

The iPhone 16e is a speedy phone, doing everything fast. A lot of that is down to the processor as well. It lacks one graphics core compared to the model in the iPhone 16, but you’d be hard-pressed to see the difference in general use: the iPhone 16e is a real performer. It also includes Apple’s first in-house modem, called the Apple C1, which the company says is the most power-efficient modem ever in an iPhone, which also contributes to the battery life.

This, it turns out, is tremendous. Apple says it has the longest battery life of any iPhone with a 6.1-inch display, lasting hours longer than even the iPhone 16, which is a more expensive device. This is the key way the iPhone 16e is better than the regular iPhone 16.

There’s only one camera on the iPhone 16e and it’s a different sensor from the main camera on the iPhone 16, though with the same 48-megapixel resolution.

This means that Apple can describe it as a 2-in-1 camera. By cropping into the central area of the image, the camera creates a 12-megapixel image, without, crucially, using digital zoom. It means in effect that there is a virtual 2x zoom lens in this camera.

Photographic results are excellent, with photographic styles so that you can choose how the images will look, opting for warmer or colder hues in the overall look.

Video is also strong – a regular standout for Apple phones – and includes the excellent audio mix capabilities of the iPhone 16 where you can seamlessly adjust the audio of videos after the event to remove extraneous voices, for example. It’s impressive that this feature has been included in this more affordable iPhone.